In the latter half of the twentieth century, there began a phenomenon known as the information revolution. While the information revolution is a historical development broader in scope than any one event or machine, no single device has come to represent the information revolution more than the digital electronic computer. The development of computer systems has surely been a revolution. Each year, computer systems grow faster, store more data, and provide more applications to their users. At the same time, the cost of computing resources has consistently declined, so that information which was too expensive to gather, store and process a few years ago, is no economically feasible to manipulate via computer. The reduced cost of information processing drives increasing productivity in a snowballing effect, because product designs, manufacturing processes, resource scheduling, administrative chores, and many other tasks, are made more efficient.
Among the applications of digital data processing technology is the capture, storage, transmission and other processing of images, both in still and motion video forms. A large variety of applications now process images is some form or another. So large is the demand for image processing that standard computer systems are now equipped with special processors and other hardware for that purpose, and a substantial amount of digital data storage is devoted to the storage of still and motion video images.
A variety of applications have emerged which transmit video data in real time for display to a remote recipient. An example is a teleconferencing application, in which a video camera is typically mounted in a fixed position in a designated room, and the video image of the space within the camera's field of vision is transmitted to a remote location for display to one or more conference participants. Early teleconferencing and similar applications required expensive hardware and software, and were accordingly limited in number and usage. As the costs of cameras, processors, transmission bandwidth, and associated resources has declined, the number and availability of applications involving video transmission have dramatically increased.
A more recent type of application shares a visual experience of a local user with a remote user in real time. The camera is physically fitted to the local user, as for example, by being mounted on a wearable appliance. As the local user changes his field of vision by moving about a structure, turning his head, and so forth, the camera automatically follows these movements so that the camera's field of vision approximates the local user's. Video captured by the camera is transmitted to the remote user, allowing the remote user to see what the local user sees. For example, it has been suggested that such an application could be used for diagnosing or repairing equipment remotely, where the remote user (an expert) provides advice, analysis, and direction to the local user (such as a homeowner).
In a further example, a rapidly growing virtual reality industry provides virtual reality applications and virtual reality enabling hardware devices for entertainment or business. Among the hardware devices are virtual reality headsets which may include integrated camera, microphone, and display. The display may be projected on a transparent screen over the user's eyes, allowing the user to see through the screen and see images projected on the display at the same time. Alternatively, the displayed images may be projected or displayed in a manner which obscures the users field of vision, allowing the user to see only what is provided by the display. A virtual reality application may allow a remote user to be immersed in the experience of the local user by transmitting video as seen by the local user to the to the remote user in real time. Such a virtual reality environment could be used for entertainment, or any of various virtual vendor house call applications, or otherwise.